


What You Want

by panpipe



Category: The Shannara Chronicles (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 09:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13051500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panpipe/pseuds/panpipe
Summary: See what you want, and take it.Eretria tries to heed the advice of her "father".





	What You Want

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meridian_rose (meridianrose)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meridianrose/gifts).



> This is an interlude from the first half of Season One. I'm interested primarily in Eretria's feelings for Wil, and in what those feelings inspire in her, far more than I'm interested in any relationship between the two. Let's be real, Wil doesn't deserver her ♥
> 
> After watching Season Two as well, Eretria's battle with her inner darkness makes the idea of her trying to be a hero that much more interesting to me -- a real struggle she doesn't even know she's fighting in Season One. I hope you like it!

Eretria has spent her entire life fighting -- and exactly _what_ she was fighting, she can't always remember. She doesn't remember a time when life felt simple, or easy, or even safe. The only time felt _stable_ were in her fleeting memories of life with her mother, a now near mythical figure in her life. The time spent with her mother is hazy, fading with each passing year, and with those memories, what little comfort the warmth of unconditional love had brought to Eretria faded with it.

As much as Eretria wants to romanticize the time with her mother, she knows even then life wasn't peaceful. She remembers running, a lot, and always being worried about where they'd sleep that night, or how long the calm might last. In reality, the transition from life with her mother, to life with Cogline, to life with Cephalo really had not been all that drastic. Throughout her entire life, in every instance, the single connecting thread was uncertainty -- uncertainty of whether or not she had a warm bed to sleep in, or if food would be served that night.

She wonders if it's that uncertainty that has her so fucked up.

By the time Eretria meets Wil Ohmsford, she thinks she's used to the Rover lifestyle. She's used to the dirty, judgmental looks from everyone else, those lucky individuals with a stable life, who don't have to lie, cheat, and steal to survive.

She tells herself she doesn't care about them.

_See what you want, and take it._

That's what Cephalo taught her. Words to live by, really.

It's those words that make her look differently at Wil when he's attacked. Not that Eretria could have left someone as stupidly defenseless as Wil Ohmsford alone while trying to defend himself against a troll. No matter how long she spent with the Rovers, she wouldn't become that.

No, when she looks at Wil, she sees opportunity. The puzzle pieces slot together slowly -- a dumb, attractive country elf, who likely had a horse and a bit of money, and who wasn't unpleasant to look at.

  
  
  


She regrets her choice almost instantly.

There's something so… so undeniably _good_ about him. She sensed it from the moment she saw him, in the way his smile quirked up on one side, lopsided, to the way his bright blue eyes stared at her after the rescue, as if she could be the light of his new world.

It's on the road that she realizes the temptation to be that light for him, to believe that she could make him happy, is nearly irresistible.

But it's painful too, knowing that no matter what he might see in her, she is nothing more than a Rover. Betraying Cephalo was not an option. He'd never let her go. As much as he fancies himself her father, she knows she is merely his property.

So she tries to shrug it off, reverts back to her tried and true method of covering up the desperate desire for something good in her life by telling Wil to strip before entering the mark's house.

Keep it light, make it fun, and don't get caught having feelings. It's the way she's managed to survive as a Rover.

She brushes aside the feeling tugging at her heart, pulling at the aching hole and suggesting it could be filled with something good for once, and drugs him and takes his precious little stones, hoping they might come in handy, that someone will believe his little fairy tale, and, if she's honest with herself, hopes that maybe it is even true.

"Short Tips," she thinks fondly, and hopes she never meets him again.

That she never thinks about what her life could be like, if she'd had a life like his. If she'd been raised by someone good, and not raised as a tool by Cephalo.

  
  
  


After being ambushed by the elf princess and losing her loot, she's grateful for the insurance of the Elfstones against Cephalo's whims. Meeting Wil may well have been her saving grace, given the way Cephalo looks at those stones.

But she's on edge after his threat to marry her off to Boca Madrid. She always knew Cephalo loved money more than her, but she didn't expect her first solo failure to cause him to lose faith in her that quickly. She always thought there was some depth of feeling between them, and it makes her realize that there's no such thing as security anywhere in this messed up world.

_See what you want, and take it._ The words reverberate in her head. 

When Cephalo offers not to sell her off, she knows with a sudden clarity it isn't enough -- can no longer be enough. Staying with Cephalo isn't safe. She will forever be subject to his whims of fancy, to the duties he has to the Rover clan they've formed.

He can't, and _won't_ , protect her.

No, she needs freedom. For that freedom, she's willing to do whatever it takes.

Even if it means stealing the light of goodness and trust from Wil's beautiful, blue eyes.

  
  
  


_See what you want, and take it._ The words repeat endlessly in her head. 

She sees Wil, she sees freedom, and she _takes it_ , takes the stones back to Cephalo and back to where her freedom will be granted. Wil's collared, and his pretty little elf princess girlfriend is too, but still… Still, he looks at her with those eyes that believe there's hope for her to make "good" choices.

"I think there's more to you than that," he says with such strong conviction, with such fervent hope in his eyes that she almost believes it. Believes that she could be more than a Rover.

She shakes him off. He'll see the reality of her nature soon enough, and with that reality, she'll lose this awful, clawing, desperate feeling that lately had come to choke at her when she was alone at night. That awful, desperate desire to be more than she's ever been. That clawing hope she wouldn't have to lie, and cheat, and steal to survive. That maybe, somewhere, someone like Wil could love her, could support her, could be her partner in this awful, desperate world.

She only wishes she could shake off these feelings he's inspired as easily as she can shake him off.

  
  
  


Eretria thought she was ready to do whatever it took to get her freedom.

She really, truly, thought she could ignore any instinct to make her dream a reality.

But then Cephalo asks her to take that stupid spoiled princess's life, and Wil's face flashes before her eyes, belief and hurt and betrayal all flitting across his face at once and making her heart ache. She realizes, with annoying clarity, that she isn't the woman Cephalo tried to raise her into being.

No, not even that. She doesn't _want_ to be that woman, who can take a life without blinking, to protect her own.

And as stupid and impossible as it seems, she realizes she still has a choice.

An impossible choice, but she makes it all the same. She saves Amberle.

Even when the perfect princess betrays her, a half-baked plan Eretria could have told her would never work if only Amberle had _asked_ , she doesn't regret her choice. She can feel inside that she's changing. Becoming someone that might be able to leave this Rover lifestyle behind. Be someone who is valued for more than her ability to fight and steal.

Even if she's still fighting for survival, even if there's still one more threat from Cephalo, she knows where her line in the sand is. No one can take that from her.

_See what you want, and take it._

She wants to believe there's a different life for her.

She's going to take it.

  
  
  


When Eretria meets Wil next, she knows the tactics will have to change. He may be good, but no one is simply that dumb to let her in close enough to steal the Elfstones without a bit of foreplay.

And unfortunately for Eretria, she really does need to take those Elfstones. Cephalo's rage is no joke, and her freedom will be meaningless if she has to watch behind her back for his goons.

Luckily for Wil, Eretria has always enjoyed this sort of foreplay -- the dance, the seduction, the thrill of it. And if they both enjoy it, she tells herself, what's the harm?

Wil has had the luxury of choices his whole life.

It's Eretria's turn.

She senses his tension, his distrust, but there, in his eyes, she still sees the exhilarating belief he has in the goodness of everyone -- in the goodness of her. Eretria speaks in half-truths, words she almost believes, and knows he is too weak to turn her away after a few kisses. She'll be out with the Elfstones quickly enough, left with a bittersweet memory of what life could be like with Wil.

She ttells herself she'll be okay with it.

  
  
  


It's only after the accusations of murder that she realizes she'd never have been okay with only that memory -- with not having Wil, with not having that hint of goodness he's given her hope she can aspire to. She realizes it with a swift and forceful punch to the gut as she watches that light in his eyes dim, when he looks at her and doesn't even realize what he's done to her.

His accusations of seduction deal the final blow.

Eretria, seduced _Wil_? The suggestion it wasn't mutual stings worse than any physical wound she's been dealt thus far.

How can he not see that _he_ seduced _her_ this whole time, with his goodness, with his hope, with his unwavering belief she could be more than she was?

His belief was her drug, and with its absence, she feels the darkness closing in on her once more. She lashes out, verbally attacks him and wishes she could make him feel even an ounce of what she's feeling.

That loss of hope.

_See what you want, and take it._

A "good" life?

She doesn't see it anymore.


End file.
